


Indirect Embraces

by Ostentenacity



Series: the road home [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Basira's in this one too but only briefly, Blind!Jonathan Sims, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Idiosyncratic expressions of affection, M/M, background Daisy/Basira, though that's not dwelt on much--just sort of A Fact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25205410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ostentenacity/pseuds/Ostentenacity
Summary: “Jon,” says Daisy, and Jon quiets, dropping his chin and hunching his shoulders. Daisy sighs. “If you don’t want me to say anything, I’ll drop it,” she says, more gently. “But it’snotsilly.”Jon draws a deep breath, and then lets it out without speaking.Daisy turns triumphantly towards Martin. “Will you hug him for me, please?”---Daisy keeps asking Martin to hug Jon. Martin’s not sure why. (Not that he’s complaining, of course!)
Relationships: Jonathan Sims & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood & Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Series: the road home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801396
Comments: 66
Kudos: 503





	Indirect Embraces

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fluffy little follow-up to my other fic, [Kith and Kin, Hearth and Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24339217/). If you don’t feel like reading that one, the gist is: Jon (but not Martin) quit immediately after 154, and he, Martin, and Daisy live together and are best buds now.
> 
> Thanks to [Bloodsbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodsbane) for beta reading and also for fixing the idea machine!

Martin is sweeping the kitchen floor when he hears the commotion from the front room.

“Daisy, it’s fine,” Jon is saying. “It’s—listen, this is totally unnecessary—”

“It’s not fine, and it _is_ necessary,” says Daisy as she rounds the corner into the kitchen, Jon a few steps behind, hand trailing along the wall. Even without the use of his eyes, he can muster up an impressive glare. 

“What’s going on?” Martin asks.

“Nothing!” says Jon hastily. “It’s nothing, everything’s _fine—”_

“Jon,” says Daisy, and Jon quiets, dropping his chin and hunching his shoulders. Daisy sighs. “If you don’t want me to say anything, I’ll drop it,” she says, more gently. “But it’s _not_ silly.”

Jon draws a deep breath, and then lets it out without speaking.

Daisy turns triumphantly towards Martin. “Will you hug him for me, please?”

Martin blinks. “Um. Jon? Is that… is that okay with you?”

“Yes,” Jon mumbles in a very small voice.

Martin walks over and wraps an arm gently around Jon’s back, pulling him against his chest. Given how nervous Jon is acting, Martin had expected him to be tentative or shy, but instead Jon wraps both arms around Martin’s middle and holds on tight, burying his face in Martin’s chest. Martin glances up at Daisy in puzzlement, and she mimes squeezing something with both arms. Martin tightens his grasp, and Jon sighs, tension dropping from his shoulders.

After a minute or two, Daisy scoops up the abandoned broom and picks up where Martin left off. “Oh—Daisy, you don’t have to do that, I can finish,” says Martin hastily. His grip on Jon’s shoulders loosens, and Jon makes a tiny cut-off sound of protest.

But Daisy waves him off. “I’m fine as long as you sweep it into the bin once I’m done,” she says.

So Martin just tightens his grip again while Daisy quietly tidies around them. When at last she sets the broom down, stretches her back with a wince, and heads for her room—footsteps changing sound as she crosses from the tile floor to wood—Jon lifts his head from Martin’s chest just enough to say, “Thank you, Daisy,” before burying his face again.

Later that evening, as he and Jon are climbing into bed, Martin asks, “Do you want me to hold you again?”

In the dim light from the window, Martin can see Jon frown slightly. “Do _you_ want to?” Since they’d started sleeping in the same bed, Jon had ended up clinging to Martin’s back every single morning, no matter how far apart they’d started the previous night.

“I guess it could be nice? I was mostly just asking in case you did,” Martin explains.

“Do—” Jon starts, and then cuts himself off with a quiet laugh. “We’re talking in circles again. If you don’t have a preference, I suppose I’d rather keep things as they are?”

“All right,” says Martin, allowing his smile into his voice. “Good night, Jon.”

Jon slips one hand over Martin’s side and then settles it against his sternum, tucking his slim body against Martin’s. “Good night,” he says softly.

* * *

At first, Martin thinks that’s the end of it, that it was an odd but sweet one-off thing, the product of some random turn of conversation between Jon and Daisy. But Daisy requests another hug on Jon’s behalf two weeks later, and then she does it again a few days after that, and then again the week after _that,_ and Martin is forced to conclude that this is now a regular part of their lives. 

Not that it’s a bad thing, of course! Martin quite likes the excuse—or, the cue, rather, since it’s not exactly like he needs an excuse these days—to hold Jon in his arms, and he likes the way Jon clings back even more. He just doesn’t quite understand why Daisy asks him to do it. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the timing.

He doesn’t ask, though. It seems weird to question it so long after the fact, and he doesn’t want either of them to stop doing it, so he cheerfully resigns himself to never knowing. But on a rainy Saturday afternoon in January, he finally does find out the reason, entirely by accident.

Basira is over, and she and Daisy are curled up on the sofa watching TV with the sound down low. Jon, who is squeezed into the tiny gap between Daisy and the armrest, listens to an audiobook, while Martin, who is perched on the recently-acquired overstuffed armchair beside him, reads a paper copy of the same book.

Martin vaguely notices when Jon tugs one earbud out to say something quietly to Daisy. They both laugh quietly, and Jon affectionately bumps her shoulder with his. She lifts an arm as though to drape it across his shoulders, then frowns, and shifts in her seat uncomfortably. Jon notices as well, and attempts fruitlessly to scoot further away. Both of them make a face. Then Daisy lightly pats Jon’s forearm twice. He fiddles with his phone, pulls the earbud out of his other ear, and says, “Yes?”

“Can I ask Martin—?” Daisy asks him, which finally pulls Martin’s full attention from his book.

The corner of Jon’s mouth quirks up. “Sure.”

Daisy looks up to where Martin is watching the two of them, and asks, “Can you please hug Jon for a bit?”

“Sure,” says Martin, pleased and slightly bemused, as usual. As soon as the word is out of his mouth, Jon hops off the sofa, orients himself, takes a precisely measured two steps toward Martin’s armchair, and then folds himself neatly into his lap, tucking his face into the hollow of Martin’s throat. Martin wraps his arms around Jon’s slender chest and squeezes hard, making Jon sigh contentedly. Martin can’t read like this—even if he weren’t utterly distracted, his arms aren’t free—but he doesn’t mind.

After a few minutes, Jon gives Martin one last squeeze and migrates back to the sofa. He perches on the armrest rather than attempting to sit next to Daisy, and puts his earbuds back in.

Martin is about to go back to the book as well when he catches Basira’s eye. She looks as perplexed as he’d felt the first time Daisy had made her odd request. She glances between him, Jon, and Daisy, who has stretched out to fill the narrow space Jon had been occupying before. When no answer is forthcoming, she clears her throat and asks, “Um. Is that just a regular thing, then?”

Daisy makes a questioning sound.

“Do you usually ask Martin to hug Jon instead of doing it yourself?”

“Only when I’m not feeling up to it,” Daisy answers matter-of-factly. “He likes the pressure, and sometimes I can’t hold on very tight—I don’t always like it when things’re pushing on my chest.”

Huh. Well, that makes sense. Basira nods along as well, and they all lapse back into companionable silence.

* * *

A few days later, Martin, Jon, and Daisy are cleaning up the kitchen after dinner when Daisy suddenly puts her broom down and sits down hard in one of the chairs, laying her forehead on the table. 

“Dizzy spell?” Martin asks. Jon sets down the plate he’s drying and turns away from the counter, brow wrinkled inquisitively.

“Yeah, just give me a second,” says Daisy muzzily. 

Martin sits down next to her and lays a hand lightly on her back. “Hug?” he asks.

The corner of her mouth, barely visible where her face is pressed to the table, turns down. “Maybe? It’s just that, your arms are sort of heavy, so…”

Martin gets an idea. It’s a little silly, but... “Can I ask Jon to help out?” he asks, earnest despite the teasing note in his voice.

Daisy blinks, and then chuckles. “Sure.”

Jon also laughs a bit when Martin immediately turns around and asks him to hug Daisy, but he still makes his careful way over to the table and wraps Daisy up in his thin arms, whisper-gentle. She rests her chin on top of his shoulder and looks over at Martin, and even though they’re sitting a foot or two apart, he feels a little glow of warmth. 

Not such a silly idea, then. Martin smiles back at her, and then gets up and takes her place sweeping the kitchen floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me your favorite line, if you like :)


End file.
